


this thing called love

by alpacasandravens



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, It's Just Sweet guys, M/M, gotham never said they WERENT dating, love that i can tag that, matchmaker jerome, so technically... - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens
Summary: When he's first moved to the violent ward of Arkham, Jon doesn't know why Jerome takes such an interest in him, and he certainly doesn't think Jerome is telling the truth about Jervis having feelings for him. As their grand plan approaches, however, and Jerome resorts to more drastic measures to get the two of them together, he starts to figure out it's not so far-fetched after all.





	this thing called love

**Author's Note:**

> is this my fifth fic posted since i last updated my main work? yes. will i stop with the oneshots? remains to be seen.  
title from crazy little thing called love by queen because i wrote this specifically because of that song

“He _likes_ you.” Jerome Valeska, terror of Gotham and current most-dangerous-prisoner at Arkham Asylum, singsonged.

This wasn’t what Jon had thought Arkham would be like. He’d actually had a pretty solid impression of exactly what Arkham was like - after all, technically speaking, he’d been incarcerated there longer than Jerome. However, before he had been treated as ill but harmless. The fear toxin his father had injected him with had trapped him inside his fear, and he’d only been a danger to himself. Now, though? With a riot and multiple murders bearing his signature? Things were a little different.

Before, he’d been miserable. Terrified. Locked in a concrete cell with only the hallucinations he saw in every shadow, hovering over him like a specter, imprinted on the backs of his eyelids. Now, he was a high-security member of the violent ward. And it operated like a (deadly) middle school.

“You’re ridiculous.” Jon rolled his eyes at Jerome, something that would have resulted in him no longer having eyes to roll if Jerome hadn’t chosen him.

He wasn’t sure why, but almost immediately upon his admission to the violent ward, Jerome had started sitting with him on break times, loudly and obviously trying to get the Scarecrow to laugh. So far, he hadn’t succeeded.

Sometimes, Jerome would mention a grand plan. A scheme to spread his insanity over the whole of Gotham, and the way he spoke made Jon suspect Jerome was making him an offer. Jerome mentioned another business partner, and the phrase ‘business partner’ coming out of the mouth of someone like Jerome, with his crudely-reattached face and raucous laugh, amused Jon. 

After three weeks of not meeting this business partner, Jon began to wonder if they were a silent partner - providing funds perhaps, but not directly participating in the scheme. Minimizing their personal risk.

Immediately after meeting Jervis Tetch, Jon realized that was not the case. Jervis was liable to talk perpetually if no one interrupted him, rambling on about any old thing that caught his interest. There was always something guarded behind Jerome’s eyes, a shield preventing Jon from discerning his real plan, an ulterior motive to most words he spoke. Jervis had no such shield. Jon could see where the shield would sit if Jervis decided to guard his emotions, but instead he spoke of how excited he was to meet Jon, to enact Jerome’s plan. He apologized for not meeting Jon earlier, something about Arkham’s mandatory crafts therapy being scheduled at an unfortunate hour, and Jon thought he really meant it.

“He does!” Jerome insisted. Jervis’s time in the rec room had ended much earlier than theirs had - apparently being able to hypnotize all the staff made him something of a safety risk, and so he was only allowed to not be muzzled for the shortest of times. So he had been escorted back to his cell, protective gear holding his mouth firmly shut, while Jerome and Jon remained sitting at the central table. Jerome waggled his eyebrows as he said “He likes you! Really.”

“We have known each other for thirty minutes,” Jon said, face and tone blank. “He doesn’t. End of subject.”

“He can and -”

“End. Of. Subject.” 

The next time Jerome brought it up, Jervis was still in the room. Arkham was preparing for the arrival of Oswald Cobblepot, and they wanted to ensure that this time, the Penguin wouldn’t be escaping without being cured. Outside, the city had fallen closer to madness, with the Pyg spreading terror, the gangs warring, and the last remaining Wayne, the city’s only hope of financial and civic stability, apparently too drunk to care.

“It’s almost time,” Jerome said, his smile far too wide for his mouth. “The last pieces are falling into place.”

Jon wasn’t sure that an increased police presence at Arkham was a good thing, so he merely nodded. He looked forward to testing his new and improved fear gas on the citizens of Gotham. Curing them of their fears by helping them embrace them. Enjoying their screams as they cowered before him.

Jervis was canvassing the rec room, talking to the inmates one by one. Persuading them to join Jerome on his escapade. Most of them didn’t need hypnosis - after years trapped in Arkham, even those whose minds had been intact on arrival hungered for blood. Occasionally, he would glance back at Jerome and Jon, sitting at the center table like kings with their court. He drew the other inmates’ minds to Jerome, recruiting them not for himself but for their leader. 

As he spoke, twisted words even without magic, Jon wondered if he was happy. He’d been wrong in his first assessment of Jervis - he had a shield, and a very effective one at that. It’s simply that most of the time, he preferred to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He’d seen Jervis go through practically the full range of human emotion. He’d seen joy, sadness, and anger, though the last one had resulted in Jervis being temporarily banned from the rec room after convincing one inmate to shove another’s head into a wall. But he’d never seen contentment. He wondered if that was the same feeling as reveling in his powers. He wasn’t sure why he cared, but he found it interesting, Psychologically.

“Are you still sure he doesn’t like you?” Jerome asked after Jervis looked back at them once again, smiling slightly.

“Yes.” Jon had been very certain of this. Certain that Jerome was desperate for entertainment, and if he had to make up gossip, he would. Certain that Jervis had not developed some kind of crush on him like they were teenagers. (Jon ignored the fact that he had been a teenager only a few years ago.) Now, though? After months of getting to know both of them better? He wasn’t sure. “How do you know he doesn’t like _you_?”

“As fabulous as I am, and much as everyone should love me, he has been giving you heart eyes since you met. It’s hilarious! And the funniest part is that you haven’t noticed!”

“There’s nothing to notice.” Jon was now very curious if there was something to notice. He’d done his best to put Jerome’s first comments out of his mind (Jerome had a habit of saying extremely weird things just when you were least expecting them), but bringing it up again meant he might be serious. Or at least telling the truth. And if he was, Jon wanted to know.

Although, he wasn’t sure that he wanted Jervis to like him. It was flattering, sure, but everyone in Gotham knew what had happened to the last person Jervis had liked. The fact that it had been his sister just made it that much weirder. And Jon, who had never met the unfortunate Alice, hoped that if Jervis did like him, it wasn’t because he reminded him of his sister.

Jon found that he was very good at ignoring all emotions aside from fear (or, excitement to cause fear in others) and anger. He was so good at it, in fact, that he only mused on Jerome’s repeated comments once. Or twice. Occasionally.

Shortly after the Penguin broke out (and oh were there rumors there, all revolving around the Riddler and a certain origami penguin), Jervis’s rec room time ended in the middle of a game of chess with Jon. Jon was starting to suspect he might be losing the game when the guards slipped on their headphones to clamp the muzzle over Jervis’s mouth, forcibly removing him from the room. As he left, Jervis tilted his head to Jon in what felt almost like a bow, and though most of his face was obscured, his eyes were smiling.

Jerome dropped into Jervis’s empty chair almost immediately and moved a chess piece. Jon raised an eyebrow. Jerome’s move, though legal, practically assured his own checkmate in three moves. Still, he wasn’t complaining about an easy win.

“If you don’t ask that lovestruck moron out, I’ll take your fear toxin.”

“You can’t.”

Jerome played with a Joker card, flipping it between his fingers in a manner that would have intimidated most anyone else. “I can do anything in here. Except, apparently, get you to see something the rest of us can see from space.”

“Hey Helzinger!” Jerome threw a rook across the room, hitting the dozing giant in the face. “Does the Hatter _like_ our resident Scarecrow?”

Helzinger nodded enthusiastically.

“See, even he sees it. And he’s an idiot. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

Jon rolled his eyes. He knew Jervis liked him. He knew Jervis thought he loved him, though Jervis used the word love far too liberally. It didn’t matter. He didn’t plan on doing anything about it. Though it was a nice feeling, to be liked, and though he certainly enjoyed spending time with Jervis, that’s all it was. He would enjoy the extra smiles and the way Jervis got slightly flustered around him while it lasted, and when it inevitably faded (as all feelings tend to, Jon thought, except for fear) he wouldn’t be bothered.

And even on the off chance that he did like Jervis back (and he felt like he was in middle school again just thinking those words, but he couldn’t find better ones), it wouldn’t matter. He liked being alone. The lives of villains were dangerous ones, and once their plan kicked off in a few weeks, they would become even more so. Even under normal circumstances, Jon wouldn’t put anything above his research. He certainly wouldn’t do so now.

Jon didn’t believe in fate. The Penguin had; he’d lamented his almost non-stop while he’d been incarcerated. He hadn’t been the only inmate to do so. Still, there were many more (Jon and Jerome among them) who counted the universe’s constant increase in entropy, the complete and utter futility and meaninglessness of their lives, as comforts. If fate didn’t exist, as he was quite sure it didn’t, that meant every decision he made was his own.

He wasn’t sure he would have decided to discuss feelings with Jervis of his own free will, ever. Yet here he was. 

“Look, am I talking to air here? Are you two dropping out of the plan in favor of staring at each other for your twenty minutes of shared time a day?”

“I’m listening,” Jon and Jervis said at the same time.

“Sure.” Jerome looked dangerous, his eyes the kind of sharp that meant he was done playing. “I asked for the looniest people in the loony bin and instead you wanna make eyes like a couple a’ normal people.”

“I was not ‘making eyes’,” Jon protested. He, in fact, had not been. He’d simply gotten mildly distracted by the thought that, when he left Arkham, he wouldn’t be forced to spend time with Jervis anymore, and he wasn’t sure how to keep seeing him without, well, _seeing him_, a prospect he found he wasn’t so averse to. He’d just been thinking that maybe he’d developed _feelings_ after all when Jerome had interrupted.

“Nor I,” said Jervis, who had been.

“You’ve got ten minutes left,” Jerome said, nodding at Jervis. “You two get three to sort out whatever the hell is going on. The last seven are mine. Tonight’s the night, ya know.” With that, he moved to another seat, two tables away, where he could watch their conversation with disdain while pretending he wasn’t eavesdropping.

Jon took a deep breath and tapped his fingers on his leg, trying to prepare himself for a conversation he still wasn’t completely sure he wanted to have but from which there was no escape.

“Wouldyoumaybepossiblywanttogooutwithme?” Jervis asked, so fast it was barely intelligible.

“What?” Jon asked, more on reflex than anything.

“Would you, maybe, possibly, want to, uh, go out with me?” Jervis asked again, voice jumping almost an octave near the end of the sentence. His face was impressively red. “Not out literally, of course, we can’t here, but. Um. If we could?”

“Um,” Jon said. 

Jon had a great deal of things to say, and he knew he wasn’t going to say any of them. He wanted to remark on how off-putting he still found it that Jervis had thought he was in love with his own sister. He wanted to explain that villains in relationships was a bad idea and could only end poorly and with the creation of another enemy. He thought he should note that he’d only just realized he liked Jervis, and this seemed just a touch too soon, even if it had been months coming. 

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh.” And Jervis seemed so relieved Jon was glad he’d said yes, even if he wasn’t sure it was what he’d meant to say. “Good. Great!”

From two tables away, Jerome loudly whispered to the catatonic inmate next to him “If this is gonna be a soap opera, they might as well kiss, don’t ya think?”

Jon glared at him. He was not a fan of being told what to do. Jerome gave him an exaggerated thumbs-up and a big wink before continuing to ‘whisper’ commentary to his unresponsive neighbor.  
Holding his middle finger up to Jerome, he leaned in and kissed Jervis, longer than was probably appropriate for the middle of the rec room. Even as the room burst out in excited chatter around them, and Jon heard the rustling that meant bets were being collected upon, he didn’t care. He was so glad he’d said yes. And even though Jerome was a dick, he begrudgingly admitted he was glad Jerome had pushed them. After all, who knew if they would have gotten there on their own otherwise?

Late that night in the back of the GCPD transport van, Jon was even happier he’d said yes. There were some things that were simply more enjoyable when dozens of asylum patients aren’t watching, and kissing, Jon reflected as Jerome hit a particularly large pothole and caused Jervis to practically fall against him, was one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed, drop kudos or a comment below or come yell about them with me over on tumblr @alpacasandravens!


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